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Poll: Younger Americans say liberalism defined their generation
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by Susan Marie Kovalinsky | February 24, 2010 at 04:57 am
424 views | 8 Recommendations | 14 comments
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Liberalism, high technology, and big government solutions defined this group of young voters
A new poll by the Pew Research center shows that younger adults in the US say liberalism was a defining feature of their generation.
These are the young Americans who turned out in droves at the voting polls and catapulted Barack Obama to the presidency.
Respondents ages 18 to 29 cited the use of high technology and the Internet, music/pop culture and liberalism/tolerance as the three top traits which define their generational cohort.
Howe and Strauss had cited these defining generational traits in great detail in their books Generations and Millennials Rising.
The tendency toward liberalism aided in their support of government and big government solutions. 53 percent of them said government should do more to solve problems; compared with 45 % of those ages 30-45, 43 percent of those aged 46-64, and 39 percent of those 65 and older, Business Week magazine online noted.
Indeed, Howe and Strauss had asked of those born after 1980, "the Daycare generation" - and the feminist generation - "have we raised a generation of little socialists?".
Moreover, one can roughly ascertain that many of these - overlapping with Generation Xers, ages 29-40, roughly now - were raised by single mothers, day care centers and public schools, with the aid of the internet.
Party affiliation was heavily Democratic: 41 percent identified as Democrats; 32 percent classified themselves as independents and 22 percent as Republicans, making them the largest percentage of Democratic supporters of any age cohort.
The largest percentage of Republicans, 31 percent, was among those 65 and older. Within this age group, 38 percent identified as Democrats and 25 percent said they were independent.
The poll was the centerpiece of a 149-page report on the estimated 50 million young adults referred to as “millennials” -- defined as those “who have come of age in the new millennium.”
Three-quarters of them are on social-networking sites, and 41 percent of them rely solely on cell phones, the poll found.
One in five is married, half as much as the figure for those now aged 46-64 at the comparable stage in life. About six in 10 of the younger adults were raised by both parents, a smaller share than for other generations, the report said.
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YankeeJim
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Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (14)
at 05:14 on February 24th, 2010
Not surprising.
Any similar data for the previous "generation", or the one before that?
I would venture to guess, and would be surprised if the "liberal" percentage of this generation isn't smaller than previous "generations" at the same point in their lives.
at 05:42 on February 24th, 2010
Hugh: I imagine that you're part of my generation. Wouldn't you agree that "liberalism" had much to do with defining our generation also? You know, sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Now look what we've become! ARRRRRRGGGGHHHHH!
at 05:54 on February 24th, 2010
Interesting also, is that as folks get older, they also grow more conservative - except those that fail to learn from life's experience and choose live in lala land.
at 06:09 on February 24th, 2010
I would move back to Los Angeles in a heartbeat if I could afford it. Trouble is the only working liberals are actors and actresses and there are not enough of them to pay for all of the maids and gardners.
at 07:43 on February 24th, 2010
As the article says:53 percent of them said government should do more to solve problems; compared with 45 % of those ages 30-45, 43 percent of those aged 46-64, and 39 percent of those 65 and older. The report is even more definitive. It is way more liberal (and less religious) than previous generations
at 05:53 on February 24th, 2010
Right, Boggie: A generation of screw ups. : (
at 06:11 on February 24th, 2010
Good story Susan -- what's all mean?
at 07:52 on February 24th, 2010
Thanks, Jim: I think it boils down to the absolute inevitability of Obama's election, by such a generation arising. They were not raised to be liberal per se, but they read the signs of their predicament growing up.
at 06:34 on February 24th, 2010
SMK: That's one way of putting it no doubt! I remember having very liberal views in my younger day. And then turning rather conservative in my early 30s and staying that way until about 40 and during that time getting into terrible ideological arguments with very close friends. But I think in that case living in NYC for so many years had much to do with it. Then another change of views set in due to certain realities that popped up--in many cases unexpectedly--and now I'm at the point of saying to all, "Live and let live". I've often said that I'm lucky to have been born at the time that I was. I don't envy younger generations today. I think that, in general, they have a much tougher time at it in emotional terms.
at 07:53 on February 24th, 2010
Yes, Rory---Yes, they have a tough time, although ours was no picnic either. I have swung from conservative at age 12-14, to liberal, back to conservative, to independent, to radical progressive-----now I no longer know where I stand. Lemme outta here : (
at 09:37 on February 24th, 2010
Perhaps you have the key G ....
at 09:54 on February 24th, 2010
I think you may have it, Boggie.
at 16:34 on February 24th, 2010
I'm a pragmatist. Simple as that. Some things have been proven not to work, by many diverse societies, over thousands of years. Other things work well.
Simple formula, except man always thinks he is smart enough to outsmart the lessons of the past, and has to experiment with failure. Even the failure of other like experiments is generally not enough to convince him of his own fallibility.
It is the folly of youth to believe they have the answers. As a rule, they aren't even aware of the questions. I know that was true at one time in my life.
at 07:50 on March 3rd, 2010
Actually, it's axiomatic: youth is rarely experientially-equipped to understand things of any great complexity or import. Most are amazingly myopic. When they grow older, they start to sense that there are alternatives to their immediate upbringing and acquired philosophies and worldviews. Until then, however, they have been unfortunately subjected to a rather incessant bombardment of liberal school and media influences. They have indeed systematically been deprived of any sense of individual freedoms and the attendant risks involved in exercising them. Liberals are simultaneously fools and geniuses. They are fools in that they have no concept (let alone tolerance) of (and for) human nature, hence they erect utopian political systems which ultimately end up having to turn ever more coercive---even deadly. They are geniuses in that they early on discovered that the vast plupart of humanity is rather limited mentally and therefore can be herded towards a huge, "nurturing" government simply by appealing to its sense of envy. Socialism and communism "win" at the ballot- box, due to this demographic truth, but these same systems destroy rights and freedoms in order to work their economic schemes of protection and redistribution. Franklin was correct in saying that those who wish to trade individual freedom for safety deserve neither. Hamilton said "the public is an ASS". Was he wrong? Churchill said "democracies get the form of government they deserve".So, good luck to us, with our hordes of socialist babies. They will, as Orwell predicted, wake up, but they will wake up far too late. I am so glad I was born in the 1940's and am a "pre-Boomer" technically. The liberal Baby Boomers and their children will ultimately be known as the generation(s) which destroyed America.